Abstract
We prepared three groups of female rats; streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats (STZ group), rats with physiological polyuria due to free ingestion of 5% sucrose solution (PU group) and age-matched control rats (C group), and investigated the voiding dysfunction during the early phase of the diabetes mellitus, by comparing various parameters after 1 and 4 weeks of treatment. Parameters examined were total voided volume, tidal voided volume (TV), bladder capacity (BC), based pressure (BP), maximum voiding pressure (PP), bladder opening pressure (BOP) and postvoid residual volume (PVR). TV and BC at 1 and 4 weeks were increased significantly in the STZ and PU groups, compared with the C group, but there were no significant differences in either of these parameters between the STZ and PU groups. PP in the PU group increased significantly compared with that in the C group at both 1 and 4 weeks, although PP decreased significantly in the STZ group at 4 weeks, compared with the C group. BOP and PP of the STZ group at 1 week were decreased significantly compared with the PU group. A large PVR was only observed in the STZ group at 4 weeks, and BP was decreased significantly compared with both the control and PU groups. These results suggest that the function of the autonomic nerve system was impaired at ∼1 week after the onset of diabetes mellitus, and that the inability to physiologically adapt to polyuria in the diabetic rats, due to the impaired autonomic function, induced voiding dysfunction during the early phase of the disease.
